


The Man in the Moon

by Kenjiandco



Series: Storm Season Verse [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Haikyuu!!
Genre: Air Acolyte Bokuto, Fire bender Kuroo, Legend of Korra 'verse, M/M, Moon spirit Suga, Mythology - Freeform, Slow Burn, legend of korra AU, rating to increase later, water tribe Daichi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-20 21:31:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9517049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kenjiandco/pseuds/Kenjiandco
Summary: The man in the moon was a human once. That’s what all the stories said.Daichi didn’t remember learning the story, just like he didn’t remember learning that his name was Daichi, or that he lived at the south pole.It had a thousand variations (like any story worth retelling) but the simplest form was so familiar it was all but a part of him.Your name is Daichi. We’re Water Tribe. This is the South pole. Your parents are fishermen.There’s a man in the moon and he used to be human.(Daichi's first boyfriend turned out to be the moon.That's rough, buddy)





	1. The Moon on the Water

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the long-promised prequel to Storm Season, featuring Daichi and his first boyfriend who turned out to be the moon. 
> 
> He really was not kidding when he said his life was weird.
> 
> Music recommendation (especially for Suga) [courtesy of my recent Westworld kick](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGNjpgSC2ZU)

The man in the moon was a human once. That’s what all the stories said.

Daichi didn’t remember learning the story, just like he didn’t remember learning that his name was Daichi, or that he lived at the south pole. He probably heard it from one of the grandmothers, trailing along after Asahi during healing lessons. It had a thousand variations (like any story worth retelling) but the simplest form was so familiar it was all but a part of him. Your name is Daichi. We’re Water Tribe (but you’re not a bender). This is the South pole. Your parents are fishermen. There’s a man in the moon and he used to be human.

The story changed as they got older (like any story worth retelling.) Daichi  _ did  _ remember the first time he heard about telling the man in the moon your secrets, overheard in the whispers of a flock of girls about his age, which was thirteen and mostly terrified of everything girls represented. If you had a secret weighing on your heart, you could tell it to the moon to keep. There was a lot in that idea to appeal to a barely teenaged boy with too many complicated thoughts he didn’t have words to. Daichi remembered wondering if you actually had to use _ words _ to tell a secret to the moon, or if you could just sort of...scream internally and hope he got the idea. 

But he’d realized as he listened that the girls were all telling each other the secrets they’d told the moon, which kind of seemed like defeating the purpose, and their secrets had a lot to do with boys they liked (but don’t tell anyone!) And then one of them said “Wakatoshi,” and Daichi rolled his eyes and stopped listening. 

The idea stayed with him though, even as he got older and girls got less scary (and some boys got a little scarier in much the same way…) Give your secrets to the moon to keep...it was comforting, somehow, warm in a place where not much one. Not because the moon would take a secret for you, not really. It was comforting because it meant the moon liked to  _ listen. _

Daichi never really had many secrets. At least, he didn’t think so. Not the kind that weighed on your heart, the kind that begged to be whispered to the silent Arctic sky. Okay, so there was the dream about kissing Asahi, but he ended up  _ telling  _ Asahi about that, and Asahi just laughed a lot and introduced Daichi to his aunts, who Daichi hadn’t realized were  _ married,  _ and they laughed at him too (nicely) and told him not to worry about it. The closest thing Daichi had to a secret here and now, at the age of sixteen, a few hours before he died for the first time...was all the clear nights he spent sitting on the docks, staring up at the moon and trying to think of something to tell it. But maybe, after all those centuries of secrets and stories and teenage girls with crushes, maybe it would be nice if someone  _ listened  _ to the moon, instead of talking.

Or maybe the moon was totally sick of him by now.

Daichi picked a pebble off the rocky beach and flicked it out into the water, watching the ripples fade into the waves. He threw the next one harder, trying to drop it into the reflection of the nearly full moon, distorted on the black water. It had occurred to him that he might actually have a moon-worthy secret tonight. But he wasn’t gonna give it to the moon. 

That would mean  _ admitting  _ it.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the idea of being apprentice to a blacksmith. He liked making things and fixing boats and working metal, and he liked Ukai, the North Pole smith who’d come looking for apprentices.He thought he’d be okay at it. He thought the North Pole would be fine, and ASahi would be coming with him anyway, to study healing at the academy there.

_ I’m so glad you boys are going together, he’d just be lost without you… _

_ You’ll look out of Asahi won’t you, you’ve always been the brave one, Daichi. _

He’d never been sure where anyone  _ got  _ that impression, but it’d followed him most of his life. Daichi’s the dependable one, the grown-up one, you’ll look out for everyone won’t you?

You’re the dependable one, it’s not like you could ever be terrified too.

_ Not like you can let anyone find out, anyway.  _ Daichi chucked another rock at the rippling moon.

Footsteps crunched down the icy gravel beach, and Asahi plopped down next to him. He didn’t say anything at first, just traced the arc of another flying pebble. The wharf was getting busier now, as the village began to gear up for one last night of squid fishing before the storms got too heavy.

“Talkin’ to the moon again?” Asahi said, eventually.

“Neh.”

“No?”

Daichi stuck his cold hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, staring down into the water. His reflection stared back at him, just a pair of too-big eyes ringed by his furry hood, faintly backlit by the glow of the moon. Asahi settled beside him.

“Ever wonder,” he asked, a little too casual, tiptoeing around the edges of Daichi’s thundercloud of a bad mood, “if the guy in the water’s real and you’re just a reflection?”

“Hm.” Daichi shrugged, feeling for another rock. “If that was true, wouldn’t you disappear as soon as he walked away?”

“Never thought of it like that.”

Daichi wiped some snow off a flat rock and sent it skimming through the air. It hopped over the tops of two whitecaps and dropped into the wavering reflection.  Daichi could feel Asahi watching him carefully out of the corner of his eye, trying to weigh up Daichi’s mood. 

“I hope  _ he’s  _ got nothing better to do than sit on the docks all day,” Asahi said eventually, and Daichi laughed, letting some of the tension out of his shoulders.

“Right? Thanks for having a boring life, dude.” Daichi lobbed a rock the size of his fist into the water, showering them both with freezing spray.

“ _ I  _ talk to him sometimes, you know,” Asahi said, breaking a second, much more comfortable silence. Daichi looked up at him in surprise. “On some of my bad days, or when no-one’s around. It helps. Helps to feel like someone’s listening, right? Someone who won’t get annoyed, or feel sorry for me…”

Daichi just stared at his best friend. He felt like a ten ton weight had just lifted off his chest. He felt like an  _ idiot.  _ He opened his mouth to blurt out his secret - what he’d  _ thought  _ was his secret - and -

“You know that’s just a legend, right?” a deep voice above them cut in. “The man in the moon.”

Daichi and Asahi both started violently. Daichi narrowed his eyes as Ushijima Wakatoshi made his way down the pier towards them.

“No, he’s real!” Asahi protested. “He’s in the history books! He was a prince of the Northern Water Tribe - they even know his name, right?”

“ _ Koushi,”  _ Daichi said softly, mostly to himself.

“Oh,  _ he  _ was real,” Ushijima said dismissively. Someone else, especially someone their age, would’ve joined them sitting on the edge of the pier. Ushijima stayed on his feet, looming over both of them. “He died in Admiral Zhao’s siege of the North Pole, that’s all. He was sick all his life and he died during the battle, and they made him into a feel good story for little kids who weren’t old enough for real history.”

Asahi shrank in on himself, hunching up inside his parka. Daichi glared. “ _ Shut  _ up, Ushiwaka.”

Ushijima just blinked at him, totally nonplussed by Daichi’s venomous stare. Asahi wouldn’t look at either of them. 

Ushijima shrugged. “If believing it makes you feel better…” he pointed at Daichi. “I was told to tell you the squid boats cast off in five minutes.”

“ _ What? Shit!”  _ Daichi scrambled to his feet, boots slipping on the wet wood. “Would it’ve killed you to  _ lead with that?”  _ He yelled after Ushijima’s retreating back. On the far side of the harbor, a steam whistle blew: the fleet leader signalling they were ready to cast off. “Asahi, I gotta run, I--” Daichi shook his head, and squeezed his friend’s shoulder tight. “I’ll see you at the dock in the morning, okay?” In the morning...a quick thrill of excitement shot through him at the thought. Daichi grinned, and was relieved to see Asahi grin back. “We’re headed for the North pole!”

“North Pole. Right.” Asahi grabbed his hand and let Daichi pull him up. “I gotta finish pack...ing...Dai?”

Daichi was staring past him, out over the water, eyes wide.

“Daichi? What’s wrong?”

Daichi blinked, and shook his head. “Thought I...no-nothing’s wrong, sorry. Go back, you slacker.”

The boat whistle blew again - they were waiting for him - but Daichi still paused a moment, starting at the black water, before he shook his head and scampered up the pier.

He could’ve sworn that, just for a second, he’d seen the outline of a figure far out in the middle of the bay...a person standing on the reflection of the moon.

 

“Daichi, we’re losing rudder power again!”

“ _ Working  _ on it!” Daichi yelled up through the grating over his head. His shout was mostly lost over the boom of waves hammering against the metal hull, and the clanging of boots back and forth across the grating. Another wave broadsided them, rocking the little squid boat on its axis and sending Daichi stumbling into the wall of the cramped engine compartment. Frigid surf splashed over the rails and rained down through the grating, stinging cold before the compartments filled with hissing steam. 

“Daichi! We-”

“ _ I know!”  _ Daichi wiped condensation off his face and ran back to the wheezing coal boiler. Stupid retrofitted engines...two power systems and neither one worked.

Daichi dropped to his knees in the freezing water sloshing back and forth across the floor and grabbed one of the big lightning charged batteries out of its slot. The contacts were already corroded by the constant wash of salt water, and the engine’s power light sputtered weakly. 

He’d tried to explain a dozen times, tried to make the boat captains understand that there was no good way to refit a steam boat for battery power, that they’d be better of  just replacing the fleet, boat by boat, if they were sick of shoveling coal. Everything he tried ran up against the one idea the captains had latched onto like a pack of pentapuses: one engine good, two engine  _ better.  _

And sure, the cheap clean battery motors pulled along just fine...until you hit rough water and the drive shaft remembered it’d been made to spin a glider propellor, and an ice filled ocean put up a lot more resistance than the atmosphere at cloud level. And then Daichi got to try to stoke the old steam boiler while the first storm of the season dumped freezing water on his head and the helmsman yelled at him for power they didn’t have.

He finally had the fire roaring, blasting heat and protected from the storm spray in its deep furnace. They had the heat but still no power and the rising waves hit harder every second...the boiler hissed and wheezed, steam spitting from the joints in the pipes overhead, and Daichi frowned, bracing himself against the impact of another wave. Something was blocking the steam pipes…

The boat jolted again, and Daichi bent his head under another rush of seawater... _ seawater,  _ leaking into the system every time they got hanmmered by another wave, higher than anything this tiny boat was made to handle, evaporating in the heat from the boiler, and leaving behind cakes of salt. Ah, hells…

Daichi ran for the ladder, not bothering with his parka. Sweat froze on his cheeks the second he left the heat of the engine room, damp cloths already starting to freeze and crinkle as he clambered onto the deck.

“Kinnoshita!” Daichi yelled, voice lost under the boom of another wave. “ _ Kinnoshita! Pipe cleaners!  _ Get to the vent pipes, they’re all full of salt!”

“What  happened to the lightning motor?” Kinnoshita yelled back as they skidded their way to the rail. 

“It wasn’t meant for waves like this!” Daichi growled, grabbing one of the long handled metal brushes from him. “ _ Nothing  _ on this stupid boat was meant for waves like this! They’re just cheap fuel, not an  _ invincibility machine... _ ” He braced his feet against the rail and leaned as far out as he dared, trying to get a good look at the vents in the weak light of the squid lamps. 

The full moon broke through a gap in the clouds, just for a minute, throwing silver light off the roiling water. It broke through the shadow’s on the boat’s hull, and Daichi elbowed Kinnoshita and pointed to the crusted vent pipes, just above the water line. 

“There!”

“Got it!”

The both lunged against the rail, reaching with the long brushes. Daichi threw his weight behind it, felt the crust of salt cracking away with the bristles, trying to aim in the brief flashes of moonlight breaking through the scudding clouds. 

Something gave, and Daichi  _ felt  _ the engine catch, a low thrum up through his boots. The boat lurched drunkenly, Kinnoshita stumbled, Daichi dropped his pipe brush and grabbed at his parka with numb hands as his brush clanged off the hull and dropped into the sea. The woman at the helm hauled on the wheel, trying to turn the nose of the wallowing boat into the waves.

“ _ Thanks,”  _ Kinnoshita gasped, bracing himself against the rails. The full moon broke through the clouds again, splashing its glowing face across the water. “Are you--Daichi?”

There was a person out on the water, A person standing on the wavering reflection of the full moon on the water.

His long, silver hair fluttered gently around his face, unaffected by the howling wind that was suddenly distant, far off and faint in Daichi’s ears. He looked...unreal, or maybe  _ too  _ real, a bright figure painted on the storm black sky. His eyes, silver as the moonlight and shining, lit from behind by some deep, pure light, met Daichi’s...and even across the stretch of stormy ocean, Daichi saw the surprise flash across his delicate face. 

Daichi opened his mouth, but before he could find words to say, one final wave broadsided the fishing boat. His numb fingers slipped off the rail as the boat keeled over, and pitched Daichi head over heels and down into the icy water.

_ Surf slaps gently against the sides of the boat. The full moon shines down on the water, bright enough behind a few scudding clouds that Daichi squints as his eyes blink open. The air, sharp and cold in his lungs, is heavy with the electric tang of storm season. _

_ Daichi draws in a deep breath, feeling an odd, starved, burn in his lungs, and lies still, staring up at the moon. Then the slap of a wave sprays cold surf across his face, and Daichi’s memory twists unpleasantly.  _

_ He jolts upright, and the little wooden boat he’s been lying in rocks dangerously. Deep in the back of his mind, memory clamors for attention, ringing roaring silence and cold so deep it ceased to be a feeling and became a  _ force,  _ a giant hand squeezing the life from his lungs… _

_ It should’ve been disorienting, should’ve been  _ terrifying... _ but it’s all background to the boy sitting in the prow of the little rowboat. _

_ “Hello,” he says moonlight catching in his silver eyes. “Still no secrets for me, Daichi?” _

_ Daichi leans forward slowly, trying not to rock the tiny boat as he moves. They’re floating on a wide expanse of calm black water, lit by a full moon that all but fills the sky. The boat bobs gently in the center of the steady gold reflection. _

_ Cautiously, feeling out every possibility, Daichi leans over the side and looks down into the dark water. His reflection stares back, wide eyed and frightened and backlit by the giant moon. He touches his face, and so does the boy in the water, but his cheeks feel cold against his fingers. _

Ever wonder if the one in the water is real, and you’re just a reflection of him?

_ Daichi lets out a shivery breath, and another jolt of memory slams across his senses, burning pain in his chest and a stream of delicate bubbles racing up towards the light of a wavering moon...Daichi sways, suddenly, dizzily certain the moon’s above him not below him, not a  reflection in the water but the real thing beyond it and growing fainter by the second as his breath races up to meet it… _

_ “Daichi.” A hand closes gently on his shoulder. “ _ Daichi.”

_ Daichi blinks, and suddenly the dizzy vision is substantial as a half-remembered dream.  _

_ “Don’t get lost in the lights,” says the silver haired boy, gently turning him away from the water. _

The full moon on the water is a gateway to the spirit world…

_ Daichi blinks. The silver-haired boy beams. _

_ “I’m in the spirit world?” _

_ “It was my fault you fell overboard in the first place,” says the man in the moon. “How could I just leave you there?” _

_ Daichi looks,  _ really  _ looks, at his rescuer for the first time. He’s a painting from a history book come to life, brighter and realer than anything around him. His slender body is wrapped in a robe, deep blue and fur lined and far too elaborate for any south pole fisherman, rich and warm and above all  _ old.  _ The robe of a north pole prince from a hundred years ago, whose hair (long and silky and pulled up in a ponytail that falls over one shoulder) turned silver when he was a baby, when the moon spirit saved his life. _

_ His wide eyes glow faintly, lit from behind like the moon on the water, soft and kind as he watches Daichi’s face. _

_ “There’s something you want to ask me, isn’t there,” he says, soft and gentle, the voice you’d use to calm a spooking animal. _

Still no secrets for me, Daichi?

_ There is something something he wants to ask. It leaves his lips before he’s thought, three shaky words that doom them both. _

_ “What’s your name?” _

_ The light behind his eyes goes out - only for an instant, one endless instant, they aren’t the ancient shining eyes of the moon spirit. They’re hazel, soft and young and  _ human  _ in a face that shatters with surprise. _

_ Then the light is back, along with that seamless painted smile (and Daichi’s gaze catches on the way the mole on his cheek disappears into the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes.) _

_ “Suga,” says the man in the moon. “You can call me Suga.” _

_ “Suga,” Daichi echoes, and it’s soft as a sigh on his lips. _

_ Suga giggles, covering his mouth with a brocade sleeve. The shake of his shoulders frees a lock of hair to fall across his eyes. _

_ “Suga,” he agrees, pretty face crinkled with amusement. “But that’s not what you wanted to ask me.” _

_ He’s right. There’s another question, bigger and darker and full of muffled waves and biting cold, and Daichi shies away from it. _

_ “Why me?” he asks instead, and sees the understanding soft in Suga’s eyes. “Why bring me here?” _

_ Suga trails his fingers through the water, ripples rebounding through the moon’s reflection. _

_ “The full moon on the water is a gateway to the spirit world,” he quotes. “You were lucky.  _ I  _ was lucky. You were...you were a chance I’ve never had before.” _

_ The water is cool on Daichi’s finger when he dips them into the water, and in sends a shiver through his blood bright as the moonlight sparking off his skin. Then Suga catches his hand, twines their fingers in the water, and all those sparks of feeling shoot straight to the center of Daichi’s chest. _

_ “And that’s still not what you want to ask me.” _

_ Daichi touches a hand to his too-cold face, feels it shake as he shuts his eyes. It’s three more words, and barely a whisper. _

_ “Am I dead?”  _

_ “Oh Daichi,” Suga smiles. His fingers touch Daichi’s wrist, nudging his hand away...and then slipped under his chin, tilting his face up to Suga’s. “If you were dead, could I do this?” _

_ And he leans forward and presses his lips to Daichi’s in a gentle kiss. _


	2. Chapter 2

Daichi jolted awake. His eyes flew open...and nothing changed. Nothing but darkness, darkness and heat and  _ pressure  _ something huge and heavy weighing down his chest and burning pain in all his limbs, his lungs burn and he can’t  _ see  _ and when he opens his mouth it’s suddenly full of clinging  _ hair-- _

The world felt distant, muffled, everything was  _ fur  _ and Daichi tried to yell in panic, pushing at a mass of heat and fluff with clumsy hands. The weight on his chest yielded, shifted...resolved itself into a wet brown nose, blocking out the sky.

Daichi jolted upright (with a faint sting of deja vu) and found himself nose to nose with a full-grown flying bison, chin resting on her front paws as she regarded him curiously. Thick white fur clung to him, his skin was damp and he was  _ covered  _ in bison hair and everything  _ hurt… _

_ “ _ Kohske! Kohske, it’s okay, let him up!” 

The bison shifted, settling back on her haunches, and Daichi jumped a foot all over again.

There was a... _ creature,  _ crouching beside the bison, all gangly limbs and wild whitish hair, staring at him with buglike, glassy gold eyes. 

Daich tried to scramble away, shoving himself up on his elbows, adrenaline overriding his aching, burning muscles, and the  _ thing  _ reached up and took off its eyes.

“Oh  _ wow  _ finally, I didn’t think you were  _ ever  _ gonna wake up!”

Daichi blinked, shaking free of some of the fog in his head. The boggle eyed crouching thing resolved itself into a boy about his own age, pushing a pair of round tinted pilot’s goggles up into his hair.

“How d’you feel?” he hopped closer, almost nose to nose with Daichi. “Are you still cold? Sorry about your clothes we had to take ‘em off cause they were full of water and you weren’t shivering anymore, Mom said that’s bad when you’re that cold--”

“You let him breathe too, Koutarou.” A youngish woman stood in the doorway of the barn...yeah,  _ barn,  _ Daichi’s muddled brain decided, noticing high bare rafters and straw on the floor and a general smell of big warm animals and big warm animal manure. This was a barn and that was a Koutarou apparently and he was a Daichi and he seemed to be in his underwear…

“Sorry Mama,” Koutarou said meekly, sitting back on his heels and the woman set a hand on his shoulder. She didn’t look much like Koutarou, with her braided jet black hair and skin darker than Daichi’s...but then Koutarou didn’t look much like anyone else Daichi had ever seen. His eyes were almost as disconcerting as the goggles had been, and almost the same color too: pale amber gold, and he squinted like the dim barn lamps were noon sun on the water. His feathery hair was a mass of mixed black and white tufts, spilling over the goggles shoved up past his forehead.

“You gave us quite a scare, young one,” his mother said, kneeling next to Daichi as he sat up stiffly. “My name’s Lhamo, and this is my son, Koutarou.” She draped a soft bison wool blanket over his shoulders, and Daichi pulled it gratefully around his bare chest. All his muscles screamed, tingling like his whole body was waking up from numbness. 

“What’s your name?” Lhamo prompted him gently.

“D-daichi,: he stammered, around a heavy shiver that clawed involuntarily up his spine. “Wh-where am I, please?” his voice came out shaky, childlike and scared  Lhamo’s eyes softened.

“This is Bhanti island. You’ve heard of it?” 

Daichi nodded.

“We were passing over on Kohske here, for our last flight of the season,” she said, gesturing to the big bison still watching Daichi with a motherly air. “You’re lucky Koutarou has such sharp eyes.” Koutarou blushed, and Lhamo slipped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him against her side. “He spotted you in the water from three hundred feet up.”

“Did I hear Driftwood Boy’s awake?” The barn door banged open again, admitting another dark-skinned woman dressed like a glider pilot. Lhamo sighed, rolling her eyes.

“And now you’ve met Nyima. My wife. For my sins.”

“Love you too,” Nyima said, pecking her cheek. “Welcome back to the world of the warm-blooded, kid. Feel okay?”

Daichi nodded mutely. He felt he was losing his grip on this situation again 

“You’re water tribe, yeah?” Nyima sat next to Daichi. Her eyes were very pale green, striking against her dark skin, and ringed with thick black eyeliner in the style the girls Daichi’s age had adopted from Republic City. There were captain’s bars on the sleeve of her pilot’s jacket. She handed him a steaming mug of some kind of soup, hot and spicy, and Daichi realized he was  _ starving.  _ He took a huge gulp and nodded, mouth full.

“Thought I recognized the clothes. Squid boats?” Daichi nodded, and Nyima threw her hands up with a snort. “The  _ hell  _ were you guys doing out on the water with clouds like those? Fishing tugs can’t handle those kind of waves!”

“ _ Nyima,”  _ Lhamo murmured, warning, but Daichi’s head had already snapped up, fire in his eyes.

“It was  _ so stupid!”  _ he blurted, and almost choked on his soup. “IT’s the stupid battery engines we got this season--”

“ _ Ah.”  _ Nyima wrinkled her nose. “Say no more. Give a boat captain lightning power and she thinks waves don’t apply to her anymore, eh?”

“ _ Right!  _ Thank you!” It’s all ‘Daichi where’s my rudder torque’ like  _ water resistance  _ isn’t a  _ thing  _ when you have electric or boats can’t cap...size...oh  _ hells--”  _ Daichi’s fists clenched, a shock running through him like he’d been dumped in the water all over again. “The  _ fleet,  _ is it...are they…”

“Hey,  _ hey,  _ easy, driftwood.” Nyima squeezed Daichi’s shoulders, rattling him gently. “Everyone’s fine. Someone got smart enough to batten down and wait for the rescue flights. We had to air drop them some coal for the burners and they’ve got a major lecture from the flight leader coming, but the boats got back with all hands. Well.” She grinned and ruffled Daichi’s damp hair. “All hands bar one.”

“We let your tribe know we found a boy in the water who matched the description,” Lhamo told him. “If you’re up to it, tomorrow we’ll get back on the radio at the harbor and you can talk to your parents.”

Daichi nodded, pulling his knees up against his chest. “ _ Thank you,”  _ he murmured, and swalowed hard. His throat felt suddenly tight. “When...when can I go home?”

Lhamo and Nyima exchanged a look, and Daichi’s stomach dropped. Grownups looking at each other like that was never a good sign. That was the look you saw when they want you to realize they weren’t sure what to do.

“There’s no good way to say this, Daichi,” Lhamo said softly. “This island is only accessible by air this time of year...and we can’t risk flying the bison during storm season, not with so few of them left. If we’re lucky there might be a glider free to carry passengers, but you know polar flights are dangerous in the best of weather…”

Daichi new where this was going. He shut his eyes tight as Lhamo said “You’ll have to stay til the storms clear...probably about three months, maybe a little longer.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Nyima said. “It sucks we had to strand you, but we had to get you somewhere safe to warm you up.”

“I know...I understand…” Daichi swallowed hard again. “I’m very grateful.”

“You’re welcome here as long as it takes to get you home, and you can call whenever we can get you radio time. It’s not a bad place to spend the winter.”

“It’s calving season too!” That was Koutarou, blurting the words out like he’d been trying to summon up the courage. “There’s gonna be baby bison in a couple days and they’re  _ really  _ cute, you can help me feed ‘em if you want--”

Daichi looked up at that, blinking wide-eyed over his knees. “Really?”

“ _ Yeah!”  _ Koutarou leaned forward on his knees again, hair flopping over his eyes. “Sometimes the really little ones need help eating but it’s not too hard once they get the idea, especially if you have two people, and you can help me find the berries they like when they get bigger and--”

The flow of words and enthusiasm washed over Daichi’s tired brain, but there was something soothing about it - listening to Koutarou talk was like being caught up in a stream of pure elemental friendliness. He was too lost i it to notice  Koutarou’s parents smile at each other over their heads.

“Kou,” Lhamo cut in eventually, “show Daichi where he can stay, okay? He looks asleep on his feet.” She helped Daichi up, still a little unsteady on his sore, tingling legs. “You call if you need anything, alright? Anything at all, we aren’t far away.” She held his eyes until Daichi nodded.

He finished the last mouthful of soup, and then gathered up his blanket and trailed Koutarou to a human-sized door at the back of the barn.

“You can sleep back here,” Koutarou said, picking up a box of matches on the table inside the door. He lit an old-fashioned hurricane lamp and stood aside, shyly gesturing for Daichi to enter. 

“It’s not much, but it’s comfy. I sleep out here during calving season some nights, cause the babies get hungry…”

Daichi looked around in a daze. The little cubby, warm in the glow of the oil lamp, was almost entirely filled with a low, round... _ nest  _ was really the only word for it. A few more sleepy blinks, and Daichi realized what he was looking at: an old leather bison saddle, spread out flat on the floor and filled to the brim with blankets and pillows.

“O-or you can have my bed and I’ll sleep out here, I don’t mind--”

“Oh!” Daichi shook himself awake. “No, n-no, this is fine. It looks great, Koutarou.”

“Oh. Good.” Koutarou sagged with relief. “Uh. And uh “You can call me Bokuto if you want. Most of the other kids do. ‘S my family name, only my moms really use Koutarou anyway…” He stared at Daichi a second to long, and then flushed and dove into an old chest in a corner for more blankets.

“Bokuto,” Daichi repeated obediently. He sat heavily on the edge of the saddle-nest, and almost lost his balance as the tangle of blankets sagged under him. His head was starting to spin again.

“Hey.” Koutarou -  _ Bokuto -  _ sat next to Daichi and leaned in close, big eyes blinking in the dim light. “Are you...well I know you’re probably not  _ okay  _ but...you’ve been really calm since you woke up. Like weirdly calm, actually.”

“‘S a skill,” Daichi mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I think I’m. I don’ know. I’m really tired.”

“R-right. Sorry.” Bokuto stood up, ruffling his hair awkwardly. “I’ll let you sleep, you must be…”

“Yeah.” Daichi curled in on himself again, pressing his aching forehead against his knees.

He heard Bokuto take a few steps towards the door and pause...and then a ball of warmth thumped heavily into Daichi’s side.

“ _ ‘M so glad you woke up,”  _ Bokuto mumbled, close to Daichi’s ear. “You were so cold when we pulled you out of the water, and just like  _ dead  _ white and I didn’t know…” his arms tightened around Daichi’s shoulders. “I d-didn’t...there was a minute we didn’t think you were gonna wake up.”

Bokuto was solid, and warm, and smelled like hay and woodsmoke, and in that instant he was maybe the  _ realest  _ thing in Daichi’s shaken-up world. He sighed, heavy and shuddery, tension draining from his tired muscles as he let himself lean into Bokuto’s chest. 

“I’m glad I woke up too,” he mumbled.

“H-heh. Yeah.” Bokuto pulled back and swiped a hand across his eyes. His thick lashes were the same odd salt and pepper mix as his hair. “What’m I talking about being scared, after you…”

“I dunno.” Daichi smiled weakly, curling up inside his blankets. “You actually  _ remember  _ what happened. I don’t have a clue.”

Bokuto’s head tipped owlishly to the side. “So y’don’t know how...all that time--” he broke off. Daichi just stared dully: warmth from Bokuto’s hug coursing through his veins, he was finding it hard to keep his eyes open. 

Bokuto dropped his gaze away. “Nevermind.” He leaned over to blow out the lamp. “Have good dreams, Daichi.” He said softly, moving to the door. “Gods know you deserve them.”

The door clicked shut, leaving Daichi alone in the moonlit dark, surrounded by the comforting rustle of the bison on the other side of the wall. He sniffled quietly to himself, and rolled into the soft nest filling the old saddle.

Daichi slept, and dreamed of moonlit hazel eyes, and soft cool lips brushing his in the darkness.

 


End file.
